Under My Skin
by LiteratiAngel
Summary: ...and suddenly he is kissing her and it’s passionate and tender at the same time and nothing like she had ever imagined kissing the Doctor could be like. Alt!TenRose songfic. Some smut so rating is subject to change. Reviews make me a happy bunny indeed!


**Under My Skin**

**Disclaimer: However many times I ask Santa for _Doctor Who_ for Christmas, he always forgets that part of the list...**

**Disclaimer Take Two: Title and song lyrics contained within are from _Under My Skin_ by Trading Yesterday. I recommend listening to it, even if it's not as a companion to this fic.**

**A/N: I've had a hankering to write a songfic for a while now (anything to get me out of history coursework, it seems!) and the second I heard this song it made me think of Alt!TenRose, despite the fact that I found it in _lilyrosebloom_'s TenSimm!Master fanmix on Livejournal (it's called _Butterflies and Hurricanes_ if anyone's interested) and I just had to write it. It's set during and just after _Journey's End_, so spoilers for the S4 finale, I guess...There is some smut in this fic. I don't _think_ it needs to be a higher rating but please feel free to tell me if you think otherwise and I'll nudge it up the ratings slightly. So, um, enjoy, I guess!**

**A/N Take Two: Please remember that all reviews are greatly appreciated so once you've finished reading, have a go at pressing the purdy li'l button at the bottom of the page...Pretty please with an even prettier Time Lord on top?  
**

* * *

_Shadow days come to haunt me here,_  
_To wrap around me,_  
_Dark and cold to hide the sunlight from my eyes._  
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

She has been here before, her shoes covered in powdery white sand, crunching along grey pebbles and catching on pearly shells. This is the beach where it all ended for her, but in a way, it began. She loved him, loves him; this strange man, this lonely alien. Her Time Lord. She wants to tell him all over again but the ghosts of unsaid words linger in the air between them, catching in the wind and mingling with her mother's excited chatter. The light is weak, faded grey to match the flint scattered across the sand. She turns to face him and knows that she has come to another end, one that might not lead to a beginning, but could be completely and utterly final.

* * *

_I cannot see beyond these clouds surrounding,_  
_I will not forget that this is not the end._  
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She wants to force his mouth open and rip the words from him. It hurts too much to stand there and watch him play the martyr, just as he has done every day since she has known him. He wants her to take the clone as his replacement and not even the veiled gratitude in his request of healing the twin isn't enough to placate the bile threatening to rise up her throat at this rejection and the tears that are already welling up, ready to flow down her cheeks and give whatever game she is playing away. She asks, as calmly as she can; it's just three words, that's all she needs to hear. But he can't even give her that.

* * *

_**Under my skin, under these scars,  
Take me again, tear me apart  
'Cause I wanna see everything you are,  
Til all that's left is not myself.**_  
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

She turns to the clone, the replacement. It's almost painful to look at him; he looks exactly like the Doctor and yet she knows that they are two very different beasts. She asks him because she has no other options anymore. He's hers if she wants him, but she needs some reassurance before she can let herself give in. The words fall from his lips as easily as melted butter, beautifully dripping adoration into her ear and she lets herself lose the moment, pulling him towards her. As his arms wrap around her, his lips pressing into hers insistently, she wonders briefly whether she is doing this to elicit a response from the Time Lord but she pushes the thought away almost as quickly as it presents itself and gives into the pretence that this _is_ the Doctor.

* * *

_This is life every second here,_  
_Gripping tighter,_  
_Empty praise to all the things I fear inside._

* * *

The journey back to London is quiet, just laboured breathing and fingers fidgeting with clothing. She feels hollow, empty. Her skin is numb, but whether it's from cold or just the lack of feeling, she isn't sure. He opens his mouth occasionally, trying to say something but thinking better of it. She's glad about that; the silence is comforting and she isn't sure how talkative she would be if someone struck up a conversation. It seems to take forever, the sun rising and setting several times before they finally reached her flat, a burning orange ball in a lilac sky; oil on water. All the time her fist is curled into his blue suit jacket, holding on for dear life as if he might disappear again, leaving her as a shell just as his Time Lord counterpart had done.  
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

_But I know that you will rise up from these ashes._  
_Tomorrow will be the light that guides me._  
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

She cooks; an attempt to pull herself back into the domesticity that she was imprisoned in. She does everything as if she's on autopilot, not paying any attention to what she is doing. She pours herself a glass of wine, hoping to dull the throbbing ache that covers her entire body as he walks into the room. He has discarded the suit jacket and she muses that he looks oddly naked in just his blue trousers and burgundy t-shirt. Part of her wants to tell him to put it back on and let him be the Doctor for her again but she shrugs the idea off, thinking that perhaps it's better this way; letting his difference to the _real_ Doctor create some distance between them. But then he smiles at her, his face lighting up and she hears a smash as the glass that had been in her hand splinters on the floor. The tears flow freely, deep racking sobs that she can't keep down as they choke her and suddenly he is kissing her and it's passionate and tender at the same time and nothing like she had ever imagined kissing the Doctor could be like.

* * *

_**Under my skin, under these scars,  
Take me again, tear me apart  
'Cause I wanna see everything you are,  
Til all that's left is not myself.**_

* * *

Her skin feels like fire, a blinding flash of burning pleasure skimming along her skin, making the hairs along her arms stand on end, excited by their own static as her nerve endings are set alight. She never wants it to end, wants to hold on forever until the crest of the wave shatters and crashes along the entire length of her body, so she lets it coil tighter inside her stomach until it is almost unbearable. Skin brushes against skin; a perfectly erratic rhythm of thrusts and gasps and arched backs when every touch of his skin against hers sings as the she prepares to haul herself off the edge of the cliff he has enticed her to.

* * *

_Take away everything,_  
_Burn away all of me._  
_As I break I believe_  
_You will come to rescue._  
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

He leans forward, moaning with the effort and the friction of skin on skin; the most intimate of human touch. His breath against her face is hot and frantic, leaden with sweat and emotion as the rhythm loses all sense of control and becomes animalistic, primal and desperate. His lips are close to her ear now, his damp hair sweeping across her cheek as he bites her earlobe sensually, blowing gentle warm puffs of air across the pink flesh before his hand finds hers, fingers intertwining trustingly and she is struck with a deep sense of love for this man who is nothing like the man she needs but everything she finally realises that she wants. He whispers, low and husky, voice dripping with desire and love, his words punctuated by slower, calmer movements.

* * *

_**Under my skin, under these scars,  
Take me again, tear me apart  
'Cause I wanna see everything you are,  
Til all that's left is not myself.**_

* * *

_"Just let go, Rose. I've got you. I've always got you. I love you."_

She doesn't think she will ever become tired of hearing those words fall from his lips, the luxury of the words the man she loved could never say and as the wave breaks, falling over her until she is hypersensitive, aware of everything she has always and never known, she whispers the words repeatedly, crying out softly as she comes apart underneath him, keening with every new touch, every new discovery that he would never have given her before now. She holds them to her; the words that mean the past, the present and the future, letters of such significance that she can barely breathe when he utters them.

* * *

_**Under my skin, under these scars,  
Take me again, tear me apart  
'Cause I wanna see everything you are,  
Til all that's left is not myself.**_

* * *

_  
_The afterglow is warm and she basks in it readily, holding the sultry sheet closer to her skin, relishing the way it clings to her, swathing her in their mixed scents. She knows that he won't leave her but the irrational fear still holds her in its suffocating grasp. Her hair is plastered to her face and he turns over slowly, his eyes opening as sleep dissipates and she is surprised by how wide they look in the soft glow of her bedside lamp. The smile he gives her is careful, slow and warm; the fragility of them at their point of breakage is enough for him to hold back his trademark grin. She smiles back, certain now as he brushes her hair away from her face with a long-fingered hand which is, she notes, the same temperature as her.

* * *

_Take away everything,_  
_Burn away all of me._  
_As I break I believe_  
_You will come to rescue._

* * *

This realisation hurts, but not as much as she thought it would. He has been created especially for her; a piece of her past that she can hold onto as she goes on into her future, knowing that he will love her constantly and she won't cause him pain as she ages and he doesn't, because there is only one heart beating in that perfectly sculpted chest of his. And she finds that she doesn't care anymore. She doesn't want binary vascular systems and honey scented skin if she can have this. Him.

* * *

_  
You will come to rescue..._


End file.
